Friday, March 02, 2007

Ohio Treasurer Richard Cordray, acting with the support of fellowBoard of Deposit members Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann and OhioAuditor Mary Taylor, today exercised the State's right to terminate a2005 contract for a Financial Transaction Device/Cash ManagementInformation System. Cordray's office has worked together with KeyBank to determine whether these information system functions, whichCordray's predecessor had decided to contract out, could in fact beperformed by Cordray's office to minimize costs and save taxpayermoney. Key and Cordray have now agreed that any further work underthe contract is not necessary.

The termination of this contract will save taxpayers up to$600,000 per year. The system created under the contract, through asubcontract to Govolution, Inc., was designed to allow state agenciesto review all incoming electronic financial transactions on one singlelist. The system is still in development and to this point is not yetready for use. Cordray has advised his fellow members of the Board ofDeposit that with recent changes in IT staffing, this task can beperformed internally within the Treasurer's Office at no additionalcharge.

And:

Cordray's fiscal diligence concerning this particular contractalso led to the discovery that approximately $170,000 in earningscredit was not applied to the State of Ohio's banking fees in 2006.Both the Treasurer's Office and Key Bank are working together tocontinue to review records for prior years to compile a total of theamounts.

Nice when a guy pays for his own salary (and then some) two months into the job. Wonder if Buckeye Institute will give him some sort of prize.

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comments:

And you know what! BI says that every Friday it's going to award a "Fiscal Pistol" moniker to someone who saves instead of wastes. No surprise that this week they gave kudos to a Republican, Matt Dolan who is at least in the Statehouse and they called AG Marc Dann their "porker" of the week. That's a shame - since Dann isn't exactly in the Statehouse. But I guess they mean more than just legislation? Or they don't know what they mean? I don't know what they mean exactly either.

But anyway - yeah - we should nominate the Treasurer for that award. I just sent in a waste tip - seriously. I told them that they needed to call out the House and Senate leadership for authorizing $250K for outside counsel so that they could sue Strickland over the veto. Since they just called Dann a porker for his spending on outside counsel, and Dann isn't even in the statehouse, well, I think this waste of Husted's falls squarely into what Eye says it wants to reveal.